How to Be Successful in E-Commerce Market Dominated by Big Players?

How do you ensure that you start successfully in e-commerce, even if big players or the previous experiences dominate the market have been disappointing?

Do you have a base, or do you not have it?
When answering the question how to start successfully, one question is essential: do you already have existing customers or do you not have them? The strategy to become successful depends mainly on this question. If you have a base, that is the starting point of online success. If you do not have one, then develop with the endpoint in mind.

Retailers
Retailers with one or more physical locations, for example, already have an existing customer base. Many also have data from these customers through a customer card. A retailer that has an existing customer base and also has data about those customers can make excellent use of it for online conversion. I, therefore, advise companies of this kind not to enter into the search engines in the first instance and to start thinking about rules that allow offline customers to buy online. Look at the purchases someone has made over the past year, try to look at what is relevant to that customer and send the right offer at the right time.

Service Providers
There are also companies without physical establishments, such as service providers in B2B or B2C, which for example work with call centres or account managers. The starting point for these parties is also to look at the behaviour of existing customers. What products do they use, is there change in use, what is the contact frequency and is it subject to change? On this basis, it is possible to think about what is relevant to which customer and how to approach them. This creates a very low-threshold and inexpensive way to stay in touch and generate more sales.

What about the startup
But not everyone has the luxury of an existing customer base. How does it work if you want to start an e-commerce organization from scratch? In all honesty, I advise quite a few people who want to start an online store not to do it, unless you have done commerce program along with your primary studies. As far as I am concerned, there is only room for an e-commerce startup if it meets one of the following conditions:

The product is unique, or the competitor is low
The easiest way to see if there is competition is to google it. What happens when you search for the name of the product? Are there many parties in the market? How professional are they? Do they have the same pricing? If there are no competitors in the market, are you sure that there is enough interest? By looking for an afternoon on Google and using Google Trends, it is possible to make a good estimate of the success. It is important to recognize that the large parties are getting bigger and bigger. If your product is unique now, you do not have to be that next week.

The budget is large
It is of course always possible to buy in an existing market. I always think Amazon is an excellent example of a party that has achieved brand awareness and thus market share with a huge marketing budget. However, this does require a view of the long-term and associated deep pockets.

The service is unique
In my opinion, the most promising e-commerce startups are those who can make a service out of their product. What I mean by that is that you do not sell a product once, but ensure that you structurally meet a need.

Make a service for your product!
Incidentally, I believe that every online and offline retailer should think about this step. Especially with the fast-moving consumer goods, it is clear that every customer needs replacement after a certain period (the product runs out). If you know when the customer has bought a product and know the interval between purchases, then you can make the right offer to the customer at the right time.

I am not a logistics expert, but a significantly associated advantage of selling products as services is predictability. If you ensure that the customer can always meet his needs, you have much more freedom to decide for yourself when you deliver the products. Looking at the example of the razor blades: if I always have enough in the house, it does not matter if my new package is delivered on Monday or Tuesday. This makes it possible to limit the logistics chain and thus the costs.

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